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Saturday, 2 April 2011

THE GREAT BRITISH COMIC BOOK WEEKEND - SEXTON BLAKE V CAMBRIDGE

Keith Chapman is better known to Archive readers as Chap O'Keefe, author of a series of hugely popular western novels - his character Misfit Lil is a particular favourite around these parts, but as well as being an accomplished novelist Keith has an interesting background in comic books.

For the first of three posts from Keith, the Archive asked Keith how it was he became involved in comic books in the first place.

As a youngster in the 1950s I'd always

preferred
the predominantly text-story weeklies,

like Champion, Rover, Wizard,
Adventure and Hotspur, plus the novels

published monthly in the Sexton
Blake Library detective series and, for a few short years, the Western
Library. This was probably a budgetary choice. Pocket money lasted
longer if you didn't spend it on comics that were read in much shorter
time. With the papers that had just one or two illustrations per item,
you could imagine your own pictures as a story unravelled rather than
have artists draw them for you step by step. The plots were roughly the
same as in the new comics. Roy of the Rovers in the early Tiger comic
was very similar to Danny of the Dazzlers in the Champion. No surprise
there. Stories and scripts were written by the same people.
When I was in my last school term in what was then called the
second-year sixth, I was supposedly working toward a Cambridge
University entrance exam. I'd also started writing articles for what
we'd now think of as a fanzine, Herbert Leckenby's Collectors' Digest.
And I wrote letters that appeared on "mailbag" pages in the magazines I
read. It was this that brought me to the attention at Fleetway House of
W. Howard (Bill) Baker, editor of the Sexton Blake Library. I think he
liked the review I wrote of Murder at Site 3, a B-movie based on one of
his Sexton Blake books.
Anyway, he had an opening in his office for a junior staff member. His
assistant, Michael Moorcock, thought of as a bit of a young maverick and
a hippie, was off to broaden his experience in Scandinavia and had
started to develop his career as a fiction writer in Science Fantasy
magazine with his Elric stories.
Besides working as a sub-editor on the two Sexton Blake novels a month,
I would also be expected to do duties occasionally on other titles
belonging to the group. By this stage, 1961, these were mainly juvenile
comics. I was interviewed by the group's Managing Editor, Alf Wallace,
and offered a job at the wage of £7. 4s. 9d a week. It wasn't much, but
the opportunity to get into Fleetway House straight from school was
tempting. After doing 0-levels and A-levels, more years of studying and
examinations, even if they were at Cambridge University, seemed daunting
rather than exciting. My parents, my sister and I lived in a house
rented from a local council. In the class-structured British society of
those days, we would have been regarded as "working class", although my
father was a qualified machine-tool maker. Despite scholarships and
other funding, university education for me would cost the family some
money, and leave me with none at all to do the things a young man likes
to do in the way of buying a car and having some social life.
In retrospect, it might not have been the wisest decision, but at 18 I
opted for Sexton Blake rather than aiming for Cambridge.
At Fleetway, it became very apparent that although a new house policy
didn't encourage it, many of the editors moonlighted as contributors to
their own or their colleagues' publications. Alf Wallace's friendly and
charming secretary, Hazel, helped me on to the freelance writing road
with the offer a near-new Royal portable typewriter, minus its case, for
£12.
Group script editor Ken Mennell tried to instruct me on how to write
scripts for war picture libraries -- for example, Air Ace -- but a
working day at the office was fairly mundane. I found myself reading
Sexton Blake submissions and proofs, copy-editing, writing new titles
and blurbs, running the readers' letters pages, keeping editorial
ledgers and liaising with the accounts department over payments to
contributors.
One big snag was clearly going to be the unionised approach to pay and
promotion. Although I was doing creative work, I was classified as a
"clerk" for a probationary period , and after that had a five-year
ladder to climb to a senior wage as a member of the NUJ.
But it was a pleasant experience in many respects. I shared many a lunch
break with young people who went on to make their mark in the comics of
the future. Barrie Tomlinson eventually became a Tiger and New Eagle
editor, an IPC group editor, and a Roy of the Rovers writer. Doug Church
was a 2000 AD art editor. Peter Stewart, with whom I shared an office,
was destined to be editor of Shoot, a top soccer paper. A few months
after I joined Fleetway, Pete's long-time friend Dave Hunt also came
along, and in time he edited several comics for IPC, including Battle
Picture Weekly.
After about a year, it became clear Sexton Blake's days at Fleetway were
numbered and my future was likely to be as just one of a number of
juniors working on the many comics, and slowly up that pay scale on the
basis of time served. Any competitive advantages I had by way of my
knowledge of the Blake "bible" and of copy-editing text would be lost.
Then an ad appeared in the World's Press News, which was the place to
look for "situations vacant" on the periodicals scene. Micron
Publications were looking for an editor for their comic book lines.
These were lookalikes of Fleetway "picture library" comic books, the
main one being Combat Picture Library. The company had been founded a
few years earlier as G. M. Smith Publishing by Ron Maiden and Mike
Budge, who had worked in the general administration offices at Fleetway.
The story went that some money had been put up by an aunt and they'd
gone into "backstreet" publishing on their own account.
I had a word with fellow Fleetway staffer Doug Church, who drew in his
own time for rival Combat and had earlier worked for G. M. Smith
full-time, if I remember correctly. It seemed you'd need to be an
all-rounder, since the staff was naturally small compared to Fleetway's,
and the hours might work out longer than anticipated and the
responsibilities wider. But Micron had no pay scalesbased on
seniority. If you worked as an editor, you would be recognised and paid as one.
I found out later that the Micron opportunity appealed to many -- I was
far from the only editorial person at Fleetway who applied for the job.
But I got it, and that was how I initially became involved in comic
books. I think what worked hugely in my favour was that as well as
making an application for the editorial post, Ibashed out a 135-frame
Combat Picture Library script on my Royal typewriter over the weekend
and submitted that, too! The payment rate was half Fleetway's, but it,
the promise of more scriptwriting assignments, and the suddenly boosted
day-job pay were riches at the time.

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GARY DOBBS/JACK MARTIN

Actor and novelist. As an actor I have appeared in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Gavin and Stacey, Moonmonkeys, Larkrise to Candleford, The Reverend, The Risen.
As a writer I write westerns for the Black Horse Western imprint using the name Jack Martin. Under my own name I am responsible for several novels including the popular Granny Smith series. And using the name Vincent Stark I have written some pretty disturbing stuff.

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